Rene Granados and his family were vacationing in Bullhead City, Arizona, when a stop at a local grocery store took an unexpected turn. As he was picking up groceries and saw his 19-year-old son being arrested for shoplifting, Granados approached officers to find out what was wrong, answered their questions about his son, and was tackled from behind by police as he turned to walk away. Police say Granados raised his arm to police; they then grabbed him and forced him to the ground. But the video clearly showed that he did not interfere with police. Nevertheless, Granados was charged with hindering prosecution.

“Despite the video proof that Granados had done nothing wrong, the city still worked—successfully—to win a guilty verdict,” Flatten explains. “With video from the store’s security camera, his lawyer thought it would be simple to get the hindering prosecution charge dismissed. But the city prosecutor later added the second charge, disorderly conduct. It was clear the prosecutor was determined to get a conviction for something.”

Granados’s case is one of several reviewed by the Goldwater Institute in which city courts convicted defendants even when evidence disputes the police version of events. Flatten’s report explains that stories like Granados’s bring police credibility—and court credibility—into question. Police credibility is an issue of growing national concern, driven largely by a series of high-profile police shootings in which the official version of events differs from what was captured on video.

And city court judges also regularly discount, dismiss, or ignore evidence that goes against the written reports and courtroom testimony of police. Flatten’s report examines the root of judges’ actions, including their tight bonds with police and prosecutors, a tendency to believe police over defendants based on faulty assumptions, a fear for their job security, and a desire to protect cities from civil liability.

Goldwater Institute Senior Policy Advisor Starlee Coleman appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Week to talk about the Right to Try, a law that protects terminally ill patients’ right to try investigational medicines that have not yet received full FDA approval. Coleman explained that the law is a “completely patient-focused, bipartisan effort” with support from myriad organizations across the nation.